Diaries and Letters

19112009

I don’t know how many of you have noticed this, but there are very few published collections of soldiers’ diaries and letters that discuss First Bull Run. I sometimes run across various sites that have letters transcribed on them, and I think I’ll start a new section on my links page for them. But here’s how you can help:

If you have in your possession any diaries or letters written by campaign participants or even civilian commentators, please let me know via this comments section.

If you’d like to share any family diaries or letters here, that’s great – I’ll include attribution, and if you want to provide a biographical sketch of the writer that can be generally confirmed I’ll include that too. Images of the documents themselves are a plus – I have to be responsible and try to limit the risk of posting phony stuff.

And, if you know of a published work or website, even if it should be obvious to me, shout it out.

Information

6 responses

As you already know I will be presenting letters and diary entries from an ancestor of mine who was in the 1st Conn. vol. regt at the new blog threemonthmen.blogspot.com. I hope to do weekly posts presenting this material in chronological order starting with events from the end of 1860 and terminating with the mustering out of the regt. after First Bull Run. I will be supplementing these entries with other information I have regarding the three connecticut volunteer regiments. I hope that all interested parties will follow along and find this informative and worthwhile.

Hi Bill. Yes, I found your new blog a while back and added it to my blogroll. What I’d like to do is post your letters here in the reources section after you put them up on your site. The reason for this is that I don’t want to have to depend on the continued existence of any other site for anything I put in the resources section. Of course I would give proper attribution and provide a link to you. If you prefer I don’t do that, I’ll still include a link to your site on the blogroll – I don’t want to lift your work without permission. Let me know if that’s OK.

I don’t know whether it belongs in the “Should be Obvious” category, as it’s rather an obscure book, but William Styple’s “Writing and Fighting the Civil War” has several letters dealing with Bull Run. The book features letters sent to a Democrat-affiliated newspaper by soldiers mostly from the New York City area. There is a lot of stuff from Fire Zouaves, Duryee Zouaves, “Mozarters” (40th NY), Excelsior Brigade men, and other NY units both famous and obscure. Styple reprints some fascinating editorials as well. This was very much a Democratic paper and the anti-Lincoln letters and editorials reflect that.
It’s not Bull Run material, but my favorite item in the book recounts a supposed incident in the Fall of ’62 in which Duryee Zouaves try to recruit Horace Greeley.

Will, I have Styples’ books and paln to use some stuff from them. Newspapers are a whole different category and a wealth of material, and I think I can never get enough of them, particularly soldier accounts.

Dulce bellum inexpertis

“I am sending you these little incidents as I hear them well authenticated. They form, to the friends of the parties, part of the history of the glorious 21st. More anon.”

About

Hello! I’m Harry Smeltzer and welcome to Bull Runnings, where you'll find my digital history project on the First Battle of Bull Run which is organized under the Bull Run Resources section. I'll also post my thoughts on the processes behind the project and commentary on the campaign, but pretty much all things Civil War are fair game. You'll only find musings on my “real job” or my personal life when they relate to this project. My mother always told me "never discuss politics or religion in mixed company”, and that's sound advice where current events are concerned.

The Project

This site is more than a blog. Bull Runnings also hosts digitized material pertaining to First Bull Run. In the Bull Run Resources link in the masthead and also listed below are links to Orders of Battle, After Action Reports, Official Correspondence, Biographical Sketches, Diaries, Letters, Memoirs, Newspaper Accounts and much, much more. Take some time to surf through the material. This is a work in process with no end in sight, so check back often!